THE dad of a murdered North Red Cap has slammed the Government after the deaths of three more soldiers were blamed on their being poorly equipped.

Corporal Simon Miller, 21, of Washington, Tyne and Wear, was one of six men — including three from the region — killed by an Iraqi mob in 2003.

An inquest in March 2006 was told more ammunition and better radios could have saved them.

Three months later, Captain James Philippson, Lance Sergeant Chris Casey and Lance Corporal Kirk Redpath died in an ambush in Afghanistan.

Two inquests were held into their deaths last week. Both coroners rapped the Ministry of Defence after hearing the men had been forced to share night-vision goggles and were operating without adequate machine guns and grenade launchers.

In one of the hearings, coroner Andrew Walker said the “totally inadequate” resources led to the soldiers being “outgunned by a bunch of renegades” and that they were “defeated not by the terrorists but by a lack of basic equipment”. Simon’s dad John Miller, also of Washington, spoke of his “anger and frustration” yesterday that lessons had still not been learned and soldiers were still being sent into war-zones poorly armed.

He said: “The likes of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown say they will look at recommendations on how they can learn from deaths like these, but what have they learnt from it? We are still losing men.

“The coroner in this latest case has slammed the MoD many times, yet nothing happens, we learn no lessons.

“We want somebody held responsible for these deaths and for those letting it happen. How many more boys are going to lose their lives for the same thing?” In the inquests of Cpl Miller, Cpl Paul Long, 24, of South Shields, South Tyneside, Lance Corporal Ben Hyde, 23, of Northallerton, North Yorkshire and their three colleagues, the coroner recorded a verdict of unlawful killing.

Mr Miller — a former soldier himself — is now taking the Ministry of Defence to the European Court of Human Rights because he says the Army failed its duty of care to his son.

He recently snubbed an invitation to dinner with Defence Secretary Des Brown, branding it a face-saving exercise.

Mr Miller said: “They say they are supporting the families, but we’ve had no support. I can’t sit having dinner in the House of Commons and discuss the murder of my son.”

An MoD spokesman said: “We have delivered equipment valued at more than £10bn to the Armed Forces in the last three years.